


Arrows

by WildOkapi



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Anger, Angst, Canon Dialogue, Character Death, Confusion, Disembodiment, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Love Conquers All, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Sensory Deprivation, Silence, Time Skips, True Love, hopelessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27806125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildOkapi/pseuds/WildOkapi
Summary: In honor of the anniversary of Val and Kai's introduction into the League of Legends universe, a retelling of the events in the Varus comicRetributionfrom Val's perspective.
Relationships: Kai/Valmar (League of Legends), Valmar & Kai & Varus, Valmar & Varus
Kudos: 10





	Arrows

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for @DigitalPopsicle's OTPtober prompt, Day 11 - Angst / Hurt/Comfort.

The universe was full of irony. _  
  
Arrows  
  
Arrows  
  
Arrows  
  
Then you already know, the truest arrows fly alone  
  
Alone_  
  
Master Kobayashi's words rang out in Val's mind as he came to some form of consciousness. The world was dark and empty. He had only the sense of existence within his mind, like a thought he couldn't get rid of. He was alive. He was alone - so alone. No sound, no sight. He couldn't breathe or speak.  
  
_The truest arrows fly  
  
Alone_  
  
But that wasn't what his mother taught him! His mother taught him about the man and the squabbling sons who could break a single twig but couldn't break a bundle of twigs because, as long as they stood together –  
  
"Val!"  
  
That was Kai's voice.  
  
Where was he? It sounded like he'd spoken directly into Val's mind.  
  
"Kai!"  
  
Maybe if Val screamed loud enough inside his own skull, inside this empty void, maybe Kai would hear him.  
  
A vague pain in his side turned his thoughts fuzzy.  
  
He imagined trying to touch his ribs, spreading his fingers over the stupid, unnecessary wound he'd gotten in their fight against the vulkodalk in ... in the –  
  
In the dark.  
  
The wound Kai skillfully treated with a plant Val only knew as poisonous.  
  
Nothing.  
  
There was nothing.  
  
"Val!"  
  
Kai's voice – again – frantic and loud in Val's head.  
  
"No... wait?" He didn't understand - was he unconscious? In a coma? "Where are you? Kai!"  
  
A violent pain tore through his head, whiting out any thought.  
  
Did he hit his head on the bottom of the well? Did his idiotic, desperate plan work?  
  
Did that mean Kai was alive?!  
  
"Gods no! Not this, Val, _please_!"  
  
_This_?  
  
Was Val dying? Was he already dead?  
  
"This is my flesh now."  
  
Whose voice –  
  
Was it one of the Noxians who'd attacked them? Was he going to skin Val's corpse as a trophy?  
  
"Valmar offered it willingly in return for your life."  
  
He offered... himself? He threw them both into the well on a desperate whim, not knowing what lurked in its depths.  
  
What had he done?!  
  
"My life? No, I don't want it. Please, I beg you... whatever you are, let me die!" Kai pleaded.  
  
In the short year and a half Val and Kai had been together, Kai had never sounded so upset, so close to panic.  
  
Wait, Kai said "whatever", not "whoever"... What exactly did Kai see?  
  
"Your time will come, Kai..."  
  
The world fell silent again. Time passed.  
  
"... is new, but it is fast!"  
  
That voice again - low and growling, like a beast learning to speak.  
  
Val opened his eyes and saw corpses strewn about the temple. By their armor, they were –  
  
"Murder carries a price, Noxian dog!" he shouted loud enough to make his head ring.  
  
"No, Val! It wants you to hate... don't let it in!"  
  
‘It’? He glanced down at his body and saw deathly pale skin and purple-black chitinous armor covering his legs and lower arms. An unfamiliar bow sat heavy in his right hand.  
  
"How can you not hate them, Valmar? They killed your heartlight! Look..."  
  
The corpses and strange body and strange bow faded away. Val looked down upon Kai's rapidly paling face, arrow upon arrow pierced through his chest, blood pooling on the temple floor…  
  
_I won't leave you... I can't lose you! ... Don't go, please ... I'm begging you... !  
  
I am your heartlight... I will always be with you._  
  
He gasped as the vision disappeared. Darkness returned.  
  
"Gods, no! I can't watch you die again, Kai, please..."  
  
"Then don't ... "  
  
_Think of me as I was, of a happy memory, of family -_  
  
"I remember - "  
  
The warmth, the smell of his mother's cooking, the look of wonderment on his siblings' faces as they listened to stories of hunts from forest to sea and the wild fields between.  
  
" – remember the love in that moment – "  
  
" ... Yes, seek solace at home and hearth with those you loved..."  
  
'Loved'?! He still loved them! Every one of them! He loved Kai more than life itself, he couldn't live without him. Kai was his heart's light, the other half of his soul, his saving grace, his –  
  
"... you didn't destroy us all, and that mistake will be your undoing."  
  
Val wanted to cover his ears. He wanted to block out that cruel, taunting voice. He wanted to believe he had died and Kai had lived and this ruthless savage _thing_ was a mere azakana - nothing more than a petty demon here to torment him in death for his inability to let Kai die.  
  
Silence.  
  
Darkness.  
  
And movement. Like he was half-asleep, being carried to bed in his mother's strong arms.  
  
"Why did this happen?" A woman sat crying with the corpse of her husband in her arms, a tell-tale wound in his chest that must've come from one of the Noxians' swords.  
  
Val knew this woman and her husband, an... herbalist and... a leather worker... their names...  
  
" ... Why did my husband have to die?"  
  
"... would you like to join him?"  
  
Did Val speak? Was it the creature?  
  
His hands shook. He reached for the woman's face –  
  
Her name was Mi-  
  
"Get away from her, Valmar..."  
  
The hands pulled away. The body turned.  
  
"I know you. Why is that?"  
  
No! _No!_ Leave her alone, beast! His mother – !  
  
Their – its – _his_ hand rose as a sign of goodwill - to show her he wouldn't let this thing attack.  
  
"Mother...? Please help me. Kai... he was dying... I didn't know what else to do!"  
  
"You let the beast out..."  
  
The beast... the unknown evil trapped in the well.  
  
The thing that could fix what was broken. The thing that could cure the crushing despair he felt.  
  
The thing that had stolen their bodies and souls and attempted to bind them in darkness and silence.  
  
"... dare call me a beast? Those that did this...? They did it for spite. For horror and the pleasure it gave them... they are the true beasts!"  
  
But _they_ had killed so many and were going to kill

Mi- Miyo! Her name was Miyo! She was an herbalist, not a fighter, an innocent! She was as much a victim of the Noxians' violence as he and Kai.  
  
"Kimella, you have to run! Its lust for death is feeding the fire of Valmar's grief!"  
  
"Kai!" Val called at the same time his mother questioned his heartlight’s presence.  
  
"Please run! It lives to kill. I am losing Val to its hate..."  
  
Losing him? Where? How?

They'd killed so many Noxians in the temple...  
  
"I will not fear my son."  
  
"Your son is gone. There is only Varus, he who was born in the wrath of a world's annihilation."  
  
Varus? That name... an echo...

The evil. The beast. The thing that stole his and Kai's bodies and souls!  
  
" – I feel his pain and his anger. Val, do not listen to the beast! You have to fight it!"  
  
But he was! He was fighting the dark and the silence and - and –  
  
And an urge to kill every last person who bore even a passing resemblance to a Noxian.  
  
"Mother... I cannot. I have to... kill those who did this. I will avenge what happened here."  
  
"No, vengeance only begets more death. My son would not want that."  
  
But he did. Val did. The beast did. Somewhere, deep down, surely his mother did as well.  
  
And Kai, of course Kai did. What was all that nonsense about losing Val to grief? He wasn't grieving! He was angry and lost and confused and scared - so scared - of that dark, empty silence. Of being without Kai.  
  
They were in water. Cold. Slow-moving. Something had scared the fish away, and it wasn't them - him.  
  
"The fort's commander is using the river as his fourth wall," he called into his head.  
  
"A decision he'll soon regret..."  
  
That voice... different from how he'd heard the beast before... no longer as if from a distance...  
  
In his head. Like Kai’s.  
  
They - the beast - killed the men within. They tracked the rest for miles. No food, no water, no sleep... just a constant growing need to destroy and destroy and destroy.  
  
It was nightfall before the beast spoke again.  
  
"Who are they?"  
  
"Noxians, savages from across the sea. They live only to fight and conquer," Val answered immediately.  
  
"I like them already," the beast grumbled. "Fifty-three men. Enough to slake your thirst for vengeance for now."  
  
Fifty-three? They'd taken out at least half that between the temple and the river – !  
  
_Would_ it be enough?  
  
They came to a stop, head turning slowly toward the distance.  
  
"I smell mortals ahead, by swift-flowing waters."  
  
"Noxians?" Had they really caught up to the bastards so easily?  
  
"Men not of this land. The blood of your... heartlight is upon them. Yes, these are the men we must kill."  
  
They must.  
  
"Val, you don't need to kill anyone!"  
  
They must!  
  
"They need to pay for what they did to you. I need this."  
  
Fifty-three Noxian dogs! They must!  
  
"No, _it_ needs this! We do not."  
  
He did. He did! They were the ones who killed Kai, who took him away from Val, who led Val to tumble over the lip of that well into the deep dark unknown –  
  
"Be silent, wretch!" the beast hissed. "We three are bound as one, our souls entwined."  
  
They wanted this. They needed this. The Noxians had to die or - or –   
  
"Val, do not let its hate consume you!" Kai...  
  
Its hate? His hate?  
  
Their hate.  
  
The beast understood. The beast felt what Val felt, knew what Val knew! Every death scream and thud of a corpse brought him closer to his goal of ridding this hellscape of the primal, unworthy mortals –  
  
"It's too strong..." Val whispered, more to himself than anyone.  
  
"Be stronger or you will be lost to it! Every death lessens you and tightens its grip on your soul."  
  
Every death strengthened him! Every death brought him one step closer to - to ending those who had wronged him!  
  
"You waste your breath, Kai," the beast said. "Valmar wants this. He needs it."  
  
He needed to save Kai.  
  
"My life is what gives you power over Valmar. His love is what holds me to life."  
  
Love?  
  
"And he will never let you go," the beast growled.  
  
Let go of love? Of Kai?  
  
"He will not have to. Together we are stronger than you."  
  
Together? His mother said something once... about a man and his sons...  
  
Something struck them from behind. They were on the ground. Boots in their line of sight. Dust and grit in their eyes and mouth. The smell of blood and sweat and –  
  
He'd failed Kai.  
  
"I never thought we would end like this," Val said without thinking.  
  
"This is not the end. I will

_always_  
  
_be  
  
with  
  
you  
_  
"You promise?" Val cried  
  
"I do."  
  
"I serve the great balance," Val intoned, centering himself, "With heart and steel. In thought and deed ... "  
  
"What are you waiting for? Kill the Ionian bastard!"  
  
A new voice. A man's voice. Outside of his head, outside of their body. Heavy with a Noxian accent.  
  
"Who are you, archer?" the man barked. "How many more of your kind are there?"  
  
"Captain Teraz, stay back," a stern voice called from nearby. "This thing is not human."  
  
Thing? Were they a thing? With hands and eyes, standing on two feet, speaking –   
  
As they pushed themselves onto their elbows and knees, Val saw the purple-black armor on their arms, the bone white skin above it, the bow clutched almost protectively to their chest.  
  
"My kind...?" the beast repeated. "You want to know how many of my kind are left? Let me tell you..."  
  
In the blink of an eye, they pushed themselves up from the dirt and the grit and nocked a bolt of red light to the bow as they landed on their feet.  
  
"We are all but extinct!"  
  
They were...? Val's head felt heavy.  
  
"Fight with me, Valmar. Together we will make them pay!"  
  
Pressure built between his eyes, muffling sound and sight. Black crept in around the edges of his vision. He was falling into the well –  
  
"No, Val! Don't listen to it!"  
  
Kai... That was Kai... Somewhere in the well with him. In the temple. In Pallas. His mother - Master Kobayashi –  
  
"Help me, Kai," he begged. "I feel you slipping away..."  
  
The darkness.  
  
The silence.  
  
The unknown.  
  
"... blood is stronger than love, Kai!" the beast howled triumphantly. "He will always need me more than he needs you!"  
  
The thump of body after body stuffed Val's head. He wanted to close his eyes - his own eyes - and wake to see Kai hovering over him with that familiar, loving concern in his eyes.  
  
"You see, Valmar?" the beast purred in a mockery of the care and concern Val so desperately craved. "Didn't killing those men feel good? Doesn't vengeance sate your soul?"  
  
"No, I feel empty," he said hoarsely. "I thought I wanted this, but I am no better than you. A monster."  
  
Out of the corner of their eye, someone was running away.  
  
"One yet remains," the beast leered. "Kill this one and our pact is sealed."  
  
Fifty-three... Fifty-three Noxians to save Kai. To leave the well. To leave the temple. To leave Pallas. To hunt beasts in the forests and the mountains and the fields until they were too old and hunched over to lift even a stick to defend themselves.  
  
That's what he wanted. That's all he wanted. That's all he –  
  
"Why must they all die? What do you really want?" Kai asked.  
  
"Vengeance, just as Valmar does."  
  
"How can this one Noxian mean anything to you?"  
  
"He is mortal. And mortals destroyed my race!"  
  
What race? Their race? Its race? Demons? Azakana?  
  
An arrow struck the lone survivor in the back, knocking him on his face. A warning shot, if anything.  
  
"Now do you understand?"  
  
They stalked toward the Noxian, stopped inches from him, towering over his quivering form like an executioner...  
  
And that's exactly what they were, Val supposed.  
  
_Fifty-three...  
  
Fifty-three...  
_  
"Mercy... Please!" the man shouted.  
  
"Mercy? You dare ask me for mercy?" the beast snarled.  
  
"Please! I'm begging you, please spare me!"  
  
"Since when does a Noxian soldier beg?" Val said, and heard his own voice come from their mouth.  
  
The black edges of his vision rapidly began to clear. He could see and hear and smell and taste the man's fear. Let him beg! The louder, the better, the faster he died.  
**  
**_Fifty-three!_ **  
  
**"I'm not a soldier!" he replied. "My name is Arek Teraz. I'm an artist, look!" He held up a worn book full of drawings - buildings and people and places Val vaguely recognized from other regions of Ionia. "I'm not here to fight! My father – "  
  
The man's free hand was shaking - an attempt to ward off their killing blow!  
  
"Kai is dead because of you!" Val screamed.  
  
**_Kill him! He was there! His hands are bloody with murder! Kill him!_**  
_  
Fifty-three...  
_  
Fifty-three men for Kai's soul –  
  
"This is for Kai!" He screamed a second time, voice cracking with emotion, the bow raised to stab through the man's chest. No arrows, no light, just wanton violence -  
  
"No!" They jerked away from the man so violently they stumbled backward. "Fight it, Val! Let go of the hate!"  
  
Kai...  
  
Fifty-three kills for Kai. Fifty-three to leave the well. To leave the temple. To grow old together.  
  
"I'm sorry, Kai...," he whispered. "I can't... It's too strong."  
  
"Too strong against us? Nothing can tear us apart. Not even this..."  
  
They were alone together in his bedroom. After he woke from his nightmare, he watched Kai sleep until dawn woke him...  
  
_Do you remember what I taught you, Valmar_?  
  
His mother's voice, warm and comforting, tender and firm, all in her own reassuring way.  
  
_Do you not see, my son, that in unity there is strength? If you stand together as one..._  
  
Something pulled at his consciousness, at the back of his mind. It pulled him back toward the light and, with it, to Kai.  
  
His voice.  
  
His warmth.  
  
His kindness.  
  
_... no enemy can ever harm you._  
  
"I made this flesh! It is mine!" The beast tensed their muscles, struggling like a snared animal.  
  
"No," Val said firmly. "This is our flesh. I won't let you do this. Not in my name."  
  
"Your hate for these Noxians is powerful," the beast ground out. "Kill this one, and we can burn the world for what they did to you heartlight..."  
  
_His_ heartlight. The other half of _his_ soul. _His_ saving grace. _His_ reason for fighting - for living - for still being human despite his rage and grief and upset.  
  
"My heartlight..." he murmured.  
  
The light grew brighter and brighter.  
  
"Our love is stronger than its hate. You are my one and only heartlight," Kai said from someplace very close to Val, as if they were standing side by side in that blinding whiteness.  
  
"You are my heartlight," Val called out. "I love you."  
  
_They were camped out in the woods. He was watching Kai sleep as he tended the fire…  
  
_That was when he told Kai he loved him for the first time but certainly not the last.  
  
Not now. Not ever!  
  
The light vanished and, in its absence, Val felt an immeasurable feeling of warmth and joy spread throughout his consciousness. More than either of those, there was love. Pure, honest, unconditional love.  
  
He opened his eyes. They were on the ground again, trembling with exertion. The Noxian artist watched them, fearful.  
  
"You may have made this body," Val said to the ground, to the beast below. "But you are not its master."  
  
He couldn't lift his head to look at the Noxian as he spoke, his body drained from the internal struggle for control. "Go, tell your masters what awaits them in Ionia."  
  
"Oh, Kai... I'm so tired," he whispered once the man and his book were out of earshot. "I want to hold you again... I want... to go home."  
  
To his mother. To his brothers and little sister. To kindness and care and love and support and warmth and laughter. To his mother's arms. To her stories and lectures.  
  
And he wanted Kai there beside him.  
  
"Home?" the beast rumbled from deep inside his - their - head. "Mortals believe it is the center of their world. But your threads  
  
_are frayed  
  
And what you_

_Seek  
  
Is not_

_There_  
  
Val stood outside the village. Outside the only home he'd ever known before he met Kai.  
  
The voice of his mother rang out from amongst a group of villagers gathered before him - them. "Who stands before me? My son or the beast?"  
  
Her spear was aimed at them, steady, unwavering.  
  
"It's me mother," Val said. He held his hands out to show her he meant no harm. "Valmar." He paused, mind struggling with the immense task of trying explain everything to her. "Kai is here too... And it's... I'm..."  
  
I'm fighting.  
  
_We're_ fighting.  
  
It's weaker when we're together.  
  
"Did you cast the beast out?" she demanded.  
  
"No," he replied honestly, without hesitation. Even then, he could feel the beast simmering like water beneath the surface of his thoughts. "It's still inside waiting. I thought I could come home, but that's not possible just now."  
  
"Where will you go?" his mother asked, voice softened to one he almost didn't recognize.  
  
And she was reaching to touch his face, unafraid, just as she'd said before.  
  
"The world is a big place, mother," he said slowly. "A way for Kai and me to be free of the beast must exist somewhere."  
  
_Right?_  
  
"Do what you must, my son," she said, hand dropped back to hold her spear. "Then come home to us. We will be waiting for you with love."  
  
With kindness.  
  
With care.  
  
Warmth.  
  
Laughter.  
  
They left her, left the village, left home, and walked west until they reached the shore.  
  
Looking over the vast ocean - endless, ever-moving – anything, everything, seemed possible. Even surviving this torment long enough to end the beast and separate their souls and minds and bodies.  
  
"We will walk together as one until we can be renewed to live and love again," he proclaimed to Kai, but also to the beast in his head where it laid low, waiting to strike.  
  
"I will cross this world and wake my dark kin," the beast declared in return.

Let it, Val thought to himself, but they would be there to fight.

Because, now …  
  
_We are the three in one  
  
The one in three  
  
We are the arrow of retribution  
  
We. Are. Varus._

**Author's Note:**

> A father grew tired of watching his sons squabble amongst themselves and so presented them with a bundle of sticks and asked each of them in turn to break the bundle. None could. The father broke the bundle apart and asked each of them in turn to break a single twig. One by one, they did…


End file.
